Day 11 Monday, Sep. 06 -- Te Anau to Queenstown and Glenorchy

Synopsis

We left Te Anau first thing and headed for Queenstown, the adventure capitol of the world. On the way, we drove along the shore of Lake Wakatipu, a gorgeous deep-blue lake surrounded by steep, snow-covered mountains. Just outside of Queenstown, we toured around Deer Park Heights, the filming location of several scenes from the Lord of the Rings, which offered great views of The Remarkables (an aptly named mountain range), Queenstown and the surrounding mountains. After checking out ski rental places for the following day, we drove past Queenstown along the bank of Lake Wakatipu to Glenorchy, visiting the filming locations of the scene of “Sam’s oliphants” and Isengaurd, and encountered yet more spectacular mountain scenery. We camped that night at Ten-Mile Delta on the shore of Lake Wakatipu.

Detailed Journal

We got another early start and headed out of Te Anau under some low clouds and fog. It didn’t look too thick and seemed like it would burn off to be another sunny day. We didn’t get much of a lookout from the lookout point on the way out of town, which was a bit disappointing. We had, however, gotten quite a treat the day before, so it wasn’t so bad. We stopped in Mossburn at a very cold souvenir shop, then continued on towards Queenstown. The trip was fairly uneventful and the views were nice, until we came upon Lake Wakatipu. The views here were absolutely phenomenal. The lake is nestled in a valley and for the first portion of our drive around it, it was surrounded by about 300 degrees of snow-capped peaks. Hanging out below the peaks was a whispy line of clouds that made for one of the best photo opportunities of our trip thus far. Jason jumped out of the van a few times and played photographer snapping off dozens of pictures. He thinks it’ll be the springboard of his lucrative photography career (move over Ansel Adams!).

We continued our drive around the lake, which continued to stretch out in front of us. Before too long, The Remarkables, appropriately named, came into view on our side of the lake. The scenes just kept getting better! We could see Queenstown across the lake at this point, and the long Lake Wakatipu curved to the left (west) out of view behind the mountains. We decided to take a diversion to Deer Park Heights for a viewing of a few filming locations in the Lord of the Rings. We got out the Two Towers DVD and watched the scenes, then drove to the filming locations and took goofy shots somewhat mimicking the action from the movie. We visited the following locations (most from the Two Towers): 1) Jason’s action shot -- The hill Aragorn ran down to warn the Rohan refugees about the wargs that Legolas had sighted (after one killed Hamas); 2) Lynette - the spot where Gimli fell off his horse and Eowyn laughed at him; 3) Jason - the brief scene showing Galdolf riding to Minas Tirith in his quest for information about the ring (from Fellowship), which is the same location as a scene of the Rohan refugees flee from Edoras; 4) Lynette - the cliff that Aragorn was dragged over by a wild warg (the other side of which was NOT a long fall into a river below, but rather a 5 foot drop to more of the same scenery); 5) Jason - the hill where Legolas fired his arrows at the oncoming wargs and (Lynette) made his sweet, sweet leap onto Gimli’s horse; 6) the entrance to the Paths of the Dead (from Return of the King); and 7) Jason - the rock outcropping from which a warg attacked and killed Hama. A prison was also built in this area for the filming of an 80’s Disney movie called “The Rescue”. The prison is still there, so we grabbed a few snapshots of it. In addition to the filming locations, the large hill provided an excellent view of The Remarkables and an overlook of Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu stretching to the west. There were also a large variety of tame animals, which was the original attraction of the area. All within 10 meters of the van (and some close enough to touch or be bitten by) were: sheep, goats, deer, elk, Himalayan yaks, llamas, buffalo, and ostriches. It was a pretty worthwhile $20 and few hours.

We drove on over to Queenstown and struggled a bit to find a spot to park (and eventually found a public parking lot that was fairly empty and our parking spot of choice over the next few days). We went to the visitor’s center to ask about ski conditions and a place to rent skis. They directed us to the most expensive place in town, which are probably giving them a hefty kickback, so we checked out a couple of the other places in the town center and found a much better deal. After the brief stop, we hopped back in the van and followed the road that continued around Lake Wakatipo to the west towards Glenorchy, which was at the end of the lake, about 45 minutes away.

We stopped about 15 minutes out of Queenstown to take a look at the place where they filmed Ithilean in the Lord of the Rings (where Sam spotted his Oliphants). It was a DOC campsite called 12-Mile Delta. This was supposed to be a quick stop with a 20-minute walk, but Jason took us off the track to try to get a better overlook of the area. We ended up tramping through some pretty thick bush and ended up in the wrong place, on top of a 10-meter dirt dropoff. The view was ok, but we certainly didn’t need to go to all the effort we went through. We eventually made our way back to the main path and walked to what we think was the actual filming location and took a photo in which Jason pretended to be Frodo and Lynette portrayed Gullum quite nicely! We jumped back in the van and drove on towards Glenorchy. Every corner we went around produced a new mountain that sprouted out of the lake edges. The lake had a nice evening calm and gave us perfect reflections of the mountains. Lots more photo opportunities here. We also paused along the side of the road to watch a couple of roosters in a mini-cock fight and watched a big turkey make his way to the fenceline. We made it into Glenorchy and continued on towards the Routeburn Track (the other side of the track that we had hiked a portion of a couple of days before). Up this road is where Isengard was created for the Lord of the Rings. Another pretty location. After a couple of pictures, we headed back towards Queenstown.

The sun was setting by this point, making the drive back even better than the drive out, which is saying quite a bit. There were a few fires burning that looked like controlled fires, which actually accentuated the sunset colors. We also caught a glimpse of a big peacock where we had previously seen the roosters and turkey. Based on the recommendation of one of the ski equipment rental places, we decided to camp at the 12-Mile Delta for the night (DOC Standard Site -- $5/person, no power facilities). We dined on penne pasta and marinara sauce and sampled the Villa Maria Merlot (2001) – New Zealand Wing, Private Bin, Hawke’s Bay. Lynette thought it was an average Merlot, Jason went for a below average rating. We both noted that it had a little bit of a sting. We got out our sleeping bags and zipped up for a cold night without a heater. We were getting used to it at this point, except for the getting out of bed part, which is a miserably cold experience.